Arkansas' model Medicaid experiment in jeopardy

Arkansas became the first southern state to expand its Medicaid program in a way that many Republicans found acceptable. The state bought private insurance for low-income people instead of adding them to the rolls of the Medicaid system, which GOP lawmakers considered bloated and inefficient.

Now Arkansas could be on the brink of another distinction: becoming the first to abandon its Medicaid expansion after giving coverage to thousands of people.

A wave of newly elected Republican lawmakers who ran on vows to fight so-called "Obamacare" -- including the state's "private option" Medicaid expansion -- has raised doubts about the future of a leading model for conservative states to gradually adapt to the federal health care law. Arkansas' incoming Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson, is remaining mum on the plan's fate.

"I think there's one thing that's clear and that's the private option is not going to exist in its current form," said Senate President Jonathan Dismang, one of several Republicans who helped craft the program and is pushing for its continuation.

What happens when the Legislature meets next month could show whether there's a way forward for anti-Obama states to adopt parts of the health care law.

The prospect of losing their new insurance is already causing anxiety among some of the 213,000 people in Arkansas who got coverage.

"It's a big concern," said Arwen Dover, who works at a Little Rock store that sells flags and has been seeing a doctor for high blood pressure. "Right now, I'm dependent on the medicine I am taking. To lose it completely would be like starting all over again."

Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia, most of them dominated by Democrats, agreed to expand their Medicaid programs to cover more low-income people under the health overhaul. The states that rejected the expansion, and the federal funds that came with it, were mostly Republican-leaning. A few GOP-led states looked for compromises. This week, Tennessee's Republican Gov. Bill Haslam announced plans for an alternative model to expand coverage.

Read Thursday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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